The present invention relates to athletic shoes for various sports.
Conventional athletic shoes have a shoe tongue in order to prevent dust, soil, grains of sand or small stones from getting into the shoe.
Such a shoe tongue is arranged in an upper vamp of an upper body of the athletic shoe. The upper vamp construction of the athletic shoe in accordance with the state of art is disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,255,876 and 4,413,431.
In accordance with the prior art athletic shoe structure, the shoe tongue is secured to the vamp in a portion near a rim at the bottom end of a U-shaped opening elongated from a throat opening of the upper body of the shoe. Therefore, when a person (runner) who is going to put on the shoes inserts his or her foot into the shoe, the shoe tongue is apt to be dragged and urged into the inside of the vamp toward the inner tip thereof along with the instep of the foot, which makes the person feel uncomfortable. Therefore, the conventional athletic shoe is disadvantageous in that it is difficult to the shoe on promptly and to wear it comfortably.